Wednesday, March 18, 2015

I am pretty disappointed in Israeli voters for decisively re-electing Netanyahu. His promise was very clear, there would never be a Palestinian state. There is no chance of a two state solution. There is only the relentless drive to eliminate Palestinians from Palestine. There will be no "peace process", of course there never was, it was always a pretense. The mask of Israel is off, and the real face is the face of a police state which oppresses Palestinians, occupies more and more of their territory, and makes life as difficult as possible in its relentless efforts to drive them out - this is the "one state solution" that has been obvious for years but America has pretended that a "two state solution" was always possible. It's not.Israeli peace activist, Miko Peled, gave an hour long talk a while back and I was so fascinated that I listened to the entire thing. He tells of the dark side of Zionism - drive out the Palestinians, Israel for Jews only, punish and oppress Palestinians. The rest is all pretense.If you focus on Hamas terrorist acts you naturally conclude that the Netanyahu approach is necessary - a matter of self defense. I have come to the conclusion that focusing on Hamas is the key to Israeli propaganda to justify their oppression of the Palestinians. But if you focus on the lives of the Palestinians the entire picture changes. You finally start to notice that they are living in a totalitarian police state. And what do oppressed people do when they live in police states? they fight back. Terrorism is the language of the oppressed. Terrorism is the language of the hopeless and impotent. Remove the oppression and the fuel for terrorism dries up. It is a shame that American hawks are so committed to Netanyahu and his dedication to oppression and war. One of Netanyahu's lovely goals is to goad America into war with Iran. Let's have you and them fight, is his message. Fortunately, we have a president who won't take the bait. God help us all if a Republican hawk becomes president and dances to the tune of Netanhahu, or more to the point Netanyahu's biggest contributor, American casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. The American Jewish lobby has had too much influence for too long on American policy. The Cold War is over and U.S. interests in Israel have waned. It is time to rethink our relationship with Israel, especially when they have made it so blindingly clear that peace with the Palestinians is not now, never was, and never will be possible.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

It seems to me that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is doing his best to sabotage the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran regarding nuclear weapons, by demanding the results that he insists on in the negotiations, knowing that his demands kill the possibility of a deal. And, perhaps worst of all, he presented his case to one half of the U.S. government, the Republicans. The House of Representatives is controlled by the Reps, and is violently opposed to almost anything the executive branch. or the Democrats in general, stand for. By teaming up with one U.S. party, Israel now has declared war on Obama, and on Democrats. Is he out of his mind?

Why on earth should the United States be doing what Israel commands? I know that Israel has had great influence on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East in the past, but I think it is about time to put an end to that influence in a very decisive way.

The relationship between the U.S. and Israel has changed pretty dramatically with the end of the Cold War, it seems to me. When the Soviets were dedicated to world domination, Israel was a valuable ally to the U.S. as a way of thwarting Soviet hegemony over the Middle East. But the Soviet Union is gone, and although Israel is a nice ally to have for its intelligence assistance in the Middle East to help us deal with the Muslim civil and religious wars, Israeli interests aren’t any more important to U.S. interests than those of Saudi Arabia, or Turkey, or Iraq, or maybe even Iran. They are all a bunch of Middle Eastern countries that refuse to play well together, and the primary interest of the U.S. seems to me to be to keep all of them from doing stupid things that will harm the U.S.

I think that those who try to equate the Islamist nutcases with the existential threats that was posed by the old Soviet Empire are ridiculously wrong. The fundamentalist nutcases are dangerous, but mostly to themselves, using mayhem against us as a tactic in their religious civil wars.

It is certainly true that the U.S. Jewish lobby has had a death grip on U.S./Israeli relations for decades, but I think that influence is starting to wane a bit. The primary argument for supporting Israel has become humanitarian since the end of the Cold War, but it is pretty hard for the average American, or at least for me, to see Israel as the victim as long as it brutalizes and dominates the Palestinians in its sphere of influence. Israel really seems to feel entitled to subjugate the Palestinians and punish them at will. Hezbollah is certainly terrible, but the Palestinians seem to me to be people who have had almost all of their freedoms taken from them by an Israeli police state.

Maybe it’s time for the U.S. to make some real demands on Israel, like to grant basic freedoms and rule of law to the Palestinians, and to demand that Israel withdraws from the occupied lands. But, time after time Israel expands their Israeli settlements, brutalizes the Palestinians, and seems to be secure in the notion that America will back them. Why are we so passive with the Israelis?

And why on earth should America stand for Israel taking sides in the partisan divides in U.S. government for the purposes of sabotaging American diplomacy with Iran?

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About Me

I am a boomer who has been both a left winger and a right winger and am seeking to add some soothing energy to the inflamed polarizations of today's rhetoric. However, in the age of extremist Republicanism I see the best way to soothe the waters is to oppose the inflammations from the Right, and the Left as needed.